LITTLE FLOWERS OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Chapter 45

Submitted by willbulow on Wed, 2010-07-14 21:25

OF THE CONVERSION, LIFE, MIRACLES, AND DEATH OF THE HOLY BROTHER JOHN DELLA PENNA

This chapter touches on several related subjects. I would say the one that ties the rest together could be called either sin and forgiviness, or spiritual warfare. The aged friar named Brother Mathew could be called a spiritual warrior. Or, to look at it another way, he had the gift of the curing of souls.

This Flowers story recounts the call and testing of Brother John della Penna. He sought to become a monk while he was still a child. He had several visions, seeing sometimes Christ, or an angel, sometimes the Devil. He believed that he would go to heaven at the completion of first one and then another voyage. As we study these visions and the life of this saint, we see the warfare between the Devil and Brother Mathew for the soul of one of the novices of the order.

In the great art of these stories, careful reading is needed to avoid missing things. For example, that the novice believes the Devil, when he says he, the novice, is damned, but he, the novice, forgets positive things, such as his years of service in the brotherhood, and that his confessor has absolved him of all his sins.